| Between 1948 and 1996, U.S. cable television grew from a form of basic antenna service for isolated, rural communities into a nationwide entertainment and information medium with multiple channels of television programming. Over the course of those decades, cable changed in terms of the technology it uses, its regulatory status, its industrial structure, peoples' uses for it, and other factors. This dissertation focuses specifically on the history of cable programming. It argues that cable's program selections and program texts have been shaped by a broad range of cultural forces. It considers the types of programming innovation that have taken place over time. And it discusses ways in which expectations for cable have been negotiated and articulated by various parties, including the cable industry itself, policy-makers, and the general public.;During the late 1960s and early 1970s--known as cable's "blue sky" period--various writers and researchers expressed optimism that cable might be guided away from its historical dependence on broadcast television. They outlined sophisticated regulatory plans for cable, and also warned policy-makers that the time for altering cable's trajectory rapidly was running out. The blue sky plans never were implemented successfully, though. Beginning in the mid-1970s, both cable and satellite communications were deregulated, and mechanisms to ensure subsidies for special-interest or local programming gradually disappeared. Nearly the only parties able to launch satellite program services were those with pre-existing television programming operations and strong financial backing. These parties were interested primarily in drawing large audiences at the lowest possible cost. Thus modern cable has been heavily dependent on the programming conventions, frequently the actual programs, of broadcast television.;However, modern cable program services also have devised strategies to promote and schedule broadcast-type programming so as to distinguish themselves from actual broadcast channels. For example, they have created programming that is not constrained to traditional half-hour or hour blocks of time. They have created new programs by rearranging segments of older programs. They have created programs that poke fun at outdated production conventions. And they have updated the production and scheduling conventions for traditional broadcast genres such as news and children's programs. |
